Last week the Royal Society held a Wikipedia edit-a-thon to try and help redress the gender imbalance in Wikipedia’s coverage of biographies of scientists.<\/p>\n
Twenty volunteers gathered in the library of the Royal Society for a few hours to learn how to create Wikipedia articles and then to research and write brief entries for a number of women scientists. Some people also took part online. The organisers had prepared a list of scientists<\/a> who needed articles to be created, or expanded.<\/p>\n I attended a workshop last year to learn the basics of Wikipedia editing, but I did not follow through, despite my good intentions. The Edit-a-thon was a good prompt to have another go. I was unable to attend the event, so I thought I would participate remotely and have a go at creating a few entries. But, as usual, things got busy at work and I ended up with just over an hour to devote to the task, late on Friday afternoon. I had identified a few women scientists from the Institute who were not in Wikipedia and proposed to work on them. I had previously written something about them for internal consumption, but I quickly realised that was not good enough for Wikipedia – I needed sourced, verifiable statements and that was going to take a bit longer.<\/p>\n In the end I managed to start one short entry, for Janet Niven<\/a>, and I made an addition to the entry for Rosalind Pitt-Rivers<\/a>. I am aiming to cover some more of the Institute’s women scientists over the next few months, as I prepare for an internal poster exhibition about them in March 2013 (for International Women’s Day). Another participant in the event helpfully created an article about\u00a0Rosa Beddington<\/a>, who was also on my list.<\/p>\n Someone commented on Twitter that the great thing about Wikipedia is that other people help out and improve the articles that you write. I know my effort was very small, and needs a good deal more work. Someone helped by tidying up my references a little. \u00a0Also, the Wikipedia system reminded me to insert inline citations properly. The editing system seems more sophisticated than I remembered, and there is a useful tool for adding references now.<\/p>\n I probably should have done some revision before starting. \u00a0The organisers recommended reading a background article<\/a> published two years ago in PLOS Computational Biology<\/em>, and Wikipedia’s own tutorial<\/a>. But my time ran out and I wanted to get in and do something, so I took the risk of plunging in and relying on what I remembered from the workshop last year. The article wizard<\/a>\u00a0was helpful too, reminding me of the need to establish ‘notability’.<\/p>\n Overall it was a bit of an ordeal – trying to do something well but in a short space of time. I think my next attempt will be better and I am assured that it does get easier as you get used to the ways of Wikipedia.<\/p>\n Nature News has a couple of items about the Edit-a-thon:<\/p>\n Last week the Royal Society held a Wikipedia edit-a-thon to try and help redress the gender imbalance in Wikipedia’s coverage of biographies of scientists. Twenty volunteers gathered in the library of the Royal Society for a few hours to learn … Continue reading \n